


Things to Toast

by Mithrigil



Category: Suikoden I, Suikoden II
Genre: Drunk Sex, First Time, Friends With Benefits, M/M, Porn Battle, the beast rune can never be buggered at all
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-07
Updated: 2012-02-07
Packaged: 2017-10-30 17:59:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/334530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mithrigil/pseuds/Mithrigil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the events of Suikoden I, Flik and Viktor have survived a hell of a lot. That doesn't make Viktor any less insufferable. Getting drunk, however, does.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Things to Toast

The arrow wound’s not a big deal. Not in a bad place, either, the kind of place that leaves only a scratch on the skeleton and one ugly scar. Oh, it’s bleeding enough to leave a trail the rubble won’t erase and Flik’s going to need at least two new shirts, but he’s had worse and healed worse.

Nevertheless, when there aren’t any more Imperial soldiers in the immediate vicinity, Viktor slings him bodily over his shoulder and drags him out of what’s left of Barbarossa’s castle. Flik is convinced that the arrow just got a mind of its own and decided to shove itself somewhere deeper, and passes out.

_Just like old times,_ he thinks. He wonders if he’ll throw up down Viktor’s shirt this time, too.

***

Even when he’s more unconscious than asleep, Flik has never been a heavy sleeper. Experience and frayed nerves have rendered him capable of awakening at a flash of light, or the drop of a bucket, or the unmistakable sound of someone failing horribly at woodcraft.

So when Viktor, at the top of a mighty set of lungs, staggers through the hall of whatever inn this is and belts a resounding _“But the Beast Rune can never be buggered at all!”_ , Flik wakes like a shot, hits his head on the backboard, and nearly passes out again.

The door swings open, fills with a bleary black-and-gold silhouette of Drunken Bear, then shuts, leaving Viktor in the room.

“I’d better not need silence and bedrest,” Flik says, and rubs sleep out of his eyes.

“If you did, I wouldn’tve brought beer,” Viktor says. Sure enough, he’s got more than one tankard in his left hand and a pitcher in the right.

Flik sighs, checks his wound -- clean bandages, the sting of medicine, nothing left under the skin -- and decides, “Hand it over.”

“You healing up okay?”

“Okay enough that I’m taking your beer.”

Viktor laughs and hulks down on the edge of the bed. “So it’s not gonna start leaking out of the wound.”

“If it does, you’ll know.” Flik toasts. “To living to drink another day.”

“I’ll drink to that,” Viktor says, and does, a long and hard pull that Flik doesn’t try to match.

Flik drinks down enough to make the bandages strain. The beer’s warm, a little frothier than he prefers but there’s no sense in complaining now.

“There’s more where that came from, if we want it.” Viktor wipes his jaw.

More beer, at a tavern Flik doesn’t recognize and Viktor probably doesn’t have a tab at, after medical expenses and a bed -- wait. “How much money do we have?”

“Well, McDohl was carrying most of it, but I snagged a few things on our way out of the palace that should keep us afloat ‘til we get wherever we’re going.”

“A few things?”

“A couple vases. Hey, don’t look at me like that. The roof was caving in! If I didn’t save ‘em then no-one’d have the privilege.”

Flik hangs his head in the hand that isn’t holding a half-full pint of beer. He expects to sigh but laughter comes out instead, and once it’s past his lips and nudging at the still-sore wound he understands why -- and doesn’t mind it at all.

“We did it,” Flik says, “didn’t we.”

Viktor grins. “About time you got into the spirit.”

“Hard to get into the spirit when I’m unconscious.”

“Here’s to not being unconscious!” Viktor toasts, and if a little of his beer sloshes over the rim of his glass and onto the bedsheets, Flik doesn’t complain either. It’s Viktor’s side of the bed anyway.

There’s cause to refill, after that, and the toasts go on until Flik wonders how deep the pitcher goes. “To Humphrey,” Flik says, “hope he’s okay out there,” and then Viktor’s turn results in a toast “To toast! I love toast! To toast tomorrow morning!”

“To tomorrow morning, wherever we are.”

“We’re in Sarady.”

“Sarady?”

“Sarady.”

“I’m not toasting to Sarady.”

“Why not? We met in Sarady.”

“That’s exactly why not.” Flik grins into his tankard while Viktor sputters around his.

“Hey, I’m worth toasting to. You’d never’ve met me if we didn’t meet here.” Viktor’s out of beer again, and at this point, so’s the pitcher, so he sets the tankard down on the floor. “Or maybe you would have. Stars and all. Hey. Imagine if I had to recruit you like McDohl did, or something. Like, standing on a bridge somewhere with nothing else to do. Or starving. Or something.”

“I’m not drunk enough for this,” Flik says truthfully.

“Then have another one!”

“Then get another pitcher.”

“I’ll do you one better. How about you get up out of bed and come down to the bar and we’ll get _two_ pitchers.”

“I’m starting to like the way you think.”

“That’s ‘cause you’re wising up to the world.” Viktor swoops his arm over Flik’s shoulders, and if he’s not exactly gentle about helping Flik up, it’s not as hard a backslap as it used to be. “C’mon.”

***

Flik never knew there were that many verses to _The Beast Rune can never be buggered at all._ He suspects Viktor’s getting them confused with some of the ones from _Little Nell from North Swallow_ , but singing’s more fun, so he sings along instead of saying anything.

And then he does have to say something, which is “Sorry!”, though it probably should have been “Pardon!” or something because that’s the more polite thing to say when you trip over someone and probably spill your beer. But it’s a crowded hallway. Viktor tends to fill up a hallway.

“I’m surprised you made it up the stairs, Sparky.”

Flik elbows Viktor in the ribs -- presumably in the ribs, it’s not like it matters with Viktor, whose ribs are probably the size of Flik’s wrists. Each. “I didn’t pass out.”

“Like I said, you’re wising up.” Viktor laughs at his own jokes enough when he’s sober, but he does it even more when he’s drunk, and when Flik’s drunk too -- which he is, though not as drunk as he’s ever been, and probably sober enough to fight his way out of here if he has to -- when Flik’s drunk too, laughing at his own jokes makes Flik laugh with him.

“Something funny about me wising up?” Flik asks.

“Only the part where you’re wise.”

This time, the requisite rib-elbowing is compounded by Viktor opening the door to their room, so Flik almost misses him on the way in. It’s probably good to remember that this door opens inward. Flik’s not sure he’s drunk enough to forget things, but he says that aloud just to make sure. “The door opens inward.”

Viktor shuts it behind them once they’re both in. “Good, you can still see straight.”

“Straighter than you.”

“I’d test that with a game of pitch-pot but we don’t have any arrows. We’ve got a vase, though. A couple.”

“From the _Imperial Palace_ ,” Flik reminds him, since he seems to have forgotten.

“Y’know, I think Barbarossa might just tear his beard out if he found out we were using one of his vases for a game of pitch-pot.”

“Probably,” Flik says. The bed’s still unmade. Viktor’s side of the sheets is still stained with beer. Flik sits on it anyway. “Viktor, we did it.”

Viktor laughs. “Of course we did it, we’ve been celebrating it for the last couple hours.”

“No, we did it.” Flik’s sure he’s said this more than once tonight already, but it’s so enormous and present in his mind, like light or air or pain, that it bears repeating. And emphasis. “We took him out of power. He’s probably dead. We did it.”

Viktor raises his tankard to toast and has clearly forgotten that he doesn’t have a tankard. It looks ridiculous. Flik laughs until he’s laughing to his knees.

“Out of beer,” Viktor says.

“No,” Flik corrects, “there’s plenty of beer downstairs where we left it. But we left the beer. It’s not gone.”

“Why did we leave the beer?”

“Because I said I didn’t want to drink anymore.”

“Are you tired?”

“No, I just don’t want to drink any more beer.”

Viktor flops down on the bed so loudly that Flik only hears the laughter after. “You really are wising up, aren’t you. I haven’t seen you even _this_ drunk since Kimberley.”

Flik blushes and shudders. “Let’s not talk about Kimberley. Tai Ho can have her.” He rethinks that statement. “Tai Ho can have her any way she wants to be had.”

Between Viktor’s laughter, the creaking of the bed, and the massive hand ruffling through Flik’s hair, Flik is briefly convinced that maybe he _is_ drunker than he wants to be. The room spins a little. But he shuts his eyes, and laughs -- because it’s funny, being propositioned by a seal forger is funny, and being drunk under the table by said forger is also funny, especially if it involves getting out of certain implicit obligations. He’d ruffle Viktor’s hair back, but it’s a greasy mess. He does it anyway. Straining up like that pulls at his wound a little, and even if Flik thinks he doesn’t stop laughing clearly he must have, because Viktor is lying mostly on top of him now, and he’s not laughing.

He settles his hand over the arrow wound, which isn’t an arrow wound anymore. “Still hurts?” His voice is strangely quiet, almost sleepy, after all that laughter.

Flik shakes his head. “It might when I’m sober.” He could say something else, about how Viktor’s as heavy as a damned bear and twice as stinking, but it doesn’t feel like the right moment.

Viktor makes a low sound of approval, like after he’s won a fight but not as loud. His hand slides away from Flik’s bandages, and up, until he’s curled his fist around Flik’s upper arm. And Flik’s so distracted by the gesture that he doesn’t even notice that Viktor’s kissing him until after he’s kissing back.

\-- _wait._

Now, Flik hasn’t kissed very many people, or any men ever, or anyone at all since Odessa in the last couple of years, but kissing was one of the things he liked most about the things he and Odessa did and it’s not bad with Viktor either. Different. Scratchier. Heavier. Slower. But good, in that dizzying way that Flik thinks he needs to hold onto to fully appreciate, so he does. Holds on. Appreciates it.

“Mm. You kiss good,” Viktor murmurs, with a low rumble that pulses against Flik’s chest.

“Odessa used to say,” Flik says, because agreeing isn’t polite but she did used to say that. Flik realizes that thinking about Odessa is probably not the best thing to be doing when he’s kissing someone else, but that trying not to think of her is worse. So he thinks about Viktor instead, which is better. Good, even, though his solid weight crushes Flik into the mattress and cuts off about half of Flik’s air.

Viktor doesn’t just kiss heavy and hard, he pets heavy and hard, and Flik dimly thinks he should have expected something like this. Flik holds on, and yeah, Viktor’s hair is as greasy as it was before but it feels natural for Flik to press his nails into Viktor’s scalp. Making Viktor gasp turns out to be as rewarding as making him sputter, or making him take things seriously, and soon enough there’s a beat to it, a pulse, that stars at Flik’s fingers and threads down through to their mouths, their chests, their hips. Viktor probably thinks he’s rocking gently. Flik hasn’t had that much pressure applied to that general area in months. He laughs -- difficult as it is when he’s not getting quite enough air -- and laughing doesn’t stop Viktor from kissing him.

Flik’s seen Viktor’s smile before, of course, and it’s less insufferable this close. Sleepier. Still like a bear with a honeycomb, but less insufferable. “You ever done this before?” Viktor asks, and Flik would ask _Done what?_ if Viktor’s hand weren’t indicating, by its current location, just what.

“Not with you,” Flik says.

“I know that.” Viktor laughs. Flik’s close enough to feel that, that and what other muscles move when he laughs that deep. “I meant with men.”

“Oh,” Flik says, maybe a little too vehemently, “no. Is it different?”

“Not really,” Viktor says. And then, as if he’s just reconsidered his answer, his body shifts atop Flik’s. “Well. I mean the things you do aren’t that different. But everyone’s different.”

“I knew that,” Flik says. He might want Viktor’s hand back where it was, to tell the truth. He definitely wants something there. The first time Flik nearly scared Odessa off, she told him that sex doesn’t mean you’re married now, but sometimes it just feels good and is something to enjoy with someone you want like that, and Flik’s still not sure he agrees with her but it does feel good, right now.

Viktor kisses Flik’s jaw, like he was going for the lips and missed. It still feels good. “You want to?”

“Sure.”

“Good,” Viktor says, and gets Flik’s pants open.

Flik knows very well how large those hands are, and how incongruously light those fingers are. So Viktor takes ahold of him in one of said massive hands and, yes, it’s different, callused in similar places to Flik’s own but farther apart, almost bracken, and Flik thinks he’s thinking about this entirely too much because the sensation is honestly amazing. A coil of heat winds up Flik’s spine, sets him sweating into the covers. Viktor doesn’t weigh as heavily onto him as he was but Flik still can’t move his hips as much as he’d like to, and he’d _like_ to, which is the important thing. He’d like more than he’s getting. There, that could be more -- Viktor’s other hand is holding Flik down by the upper arm. Flik cranes closer, stretches his neck and his tongue to test if Viktor’s hand tastes like it feels. It does, like sweat and beer and a little like stone, but not in a bad way at all. It turns out that sucking on one of Viktor’s fingers is like two of Odessa’s. Flik’s not surprised. Not better, just different, but _good._

Viktor’s voice is low enough, heated enough, that Flik mistakes it for a growl at first, or the rumbling of the bed, or the crackle of fire. “You trying to tell me something?”

Flik’s only response to that is a blank “Huh?”, which isn’t even all that audible around Viktor’s fingers.

“I mean, we could, but we’d need more than -- hang on, I’ve got something,” Viktor says, and then he _stops_ , and even if Flik’s having a much easier time breathing now he doesn’t want _stops_.

Flik sits up, which is surprisingly difficult, and takes stock of the room. The firelight’s lower than it was, and that’s fine -- the fireworks haven’t stopped outside, which is fine too -- Flik’s sword is at the edge of the bed and still in reach, even though his pants are around his knees, which was fine until Viktor stopped touching him -- and Viktor is rooting around in one of his rucksacks.

“Is this really the time?” Flik asks.

“Better before than after,” Viktor says, and then, “aha, this should work.” He sets a jar on the edge of the bed. “Might have to buy more from the healer for your wound, but at least this won’t hurt.”

Flik blinks. “Hurt?”

“Yeah.”

“-- oh.” That. Flik gets it. “Aren’t I too old?”

Viktor’s face screws into at least three different confused expressions, starting with one eyebrow raised, then the other, then both, and his mouth in three of the funniest grimaces Flik’s ever seen. “What the hell do they _do_ in Warrior’s Village?”

“It’s a long story,” Flik says, because that’s true.

“Sounds like everything there’s a long story,” Viktor says, sits down on the bed again. “Don’t tell it. Look. I think I want to fuck you. Is that okay?”

Well it isn’t _not_ okay, not how Flik’s body responds to the idea, warm and urgent and a little evaluative but _curious_ , and nothing about this has felt wrong so far. And then he considers it, considers everything else he’s done since he left, and everything he’s learned, and the wound in his side from destroying the Empire in Odessa and McDohl’s names, with Viktor at his back through it all.

They’re alive. They did it. They should do this too.

So Flik says, “Yeah. Yeah, that’s good.”

Viktor grins and yanks Flik’s pants the rest of the way off, which has the added effect of tugging Flik farther off the bed than he was before. Flik flails, but doesn’t get to far in it, because as soon as the jar’s open and set aside Viktor taps him on the thigh, holds his legs apart. “Guess you’ve never done this before either.”

Flik shakes his head. “No. -- and not to her. If that’s what you’re asking.”

“It was,” Viktor says.

“You like that,” Flik realizes, and that shouldn’t add fuel to the heat spread through him.

“Can’t say I don’t, I just hope you’ll like it too.” With a layer of slick balm over his fingers, they aren’t nearly as rough as before. Flik wonders whether he likes that more or less, with the unintended effect that just where said fingers _go_ comes as something of a surprise.

“Easy, Sparky.” Viktor laughs. Flik hadn’t realized that feeling someone else’s laughter inside was a thing. It’s definitely a thing.

“Don’t call me that,” Flik says anyway.

“You’re the boss,” Viktor says, wriggling his fingers around. It hurts about as much as a stretch or a flex just barely out of range, which Flik supposes it is, more or less. Not bad. Different. Definitely distracting. Viktor’s other hand is even more distracting, to be honest, holding Flik’s legs open just slightly off-center so that his knuckles are right up against Flik’s balls.

Flik realizes he might have just been extremely impolite, and bursts out laughing.

That -- that hurts a little, and then doesn’t at all, and Viktor laughs with him or at him, it doesn’t matter. “You know, when I said you lost your funny bone, I didn’t think you shoved it up here. Though that does explain a lot.”

“I didn’t,” Flik says. “Sorry. Ah. Let me slick you up.”

“Oh?”

“I haven’t touched you. So let me slick you up.”

Making Viktor gape and grin like that is just as rewarding as making him gasp.

“You got it,” Viktor says, lets go of Flik’s leg to brace himself on the bed, and holds over the open jar.

Flik scrapes a fingerful out and readies his hand. Viktor’s as big and hairy as Flik expected him to be, bigger now that he’s hard, and Flik decides, consciously, not to balk at the sight. Or the thought. Or the feel, which isn’t all that different, or the low heady sounds that Viktor makes when Flik tightens his hand, which go straight to Flik’s groin.

There’s definitely more pressure where Viktor’s hand is, now. Flik never thought he’d be able to tell the difference between one knucklebone and two in this context, but he certainly can. He’s aware of the tightness inside and out, the kind that sears up to his eyes like the blissful crack from wringing out an overworked shoulder. Viktor overshadows him, shifting and weighing down on him as his breath loses its pace. New as the rest is, this part is familiar, and when Viktor asks if Flik’s ready, there’s no answer but “Ready when you are.”

It takes some repositioning, but once Flik’s body figures out that it’s not so different from some of the ways he held Odessa down, he lets Viktor handle his legs and tries not to laugh too much. Viktor shoves in. Flik stops breathing entirely, let alone laughing, let alone _anything_.

He thinks, somewhere though the jolt of foreign heat, that the fireworks outside have gotten louder.

Viktor groans, doesn’t move, and holds Flik behind the knee like he’s going to pick him up and throw him. “You’re tight as a damn vise.”

Flik blinks. Even blinking is hard. “Is that a good thing?”

Viktor laughs his face. Flik should yell at him. But then Viktor draws back and thrusts down again, still mostly laughing, and Flik yells something else entirely. And then it’s not so much yelling as trying not to yell, because if he says anything at all it’ll be obscene, if he has the capacity for words, which he doesn’t.

This part isn’t different at all -- well, that’s not true. But the motion is the same, and the searching out a rhythm is the same, and the fumbling around to touch and take and have as much as he can is the same, and if his lips come into contact with a hairier jaw or a thicker shoulder there’s nothing wrong with that. Viktor plows into him and Flik shoves back, Viktor holds him down and Flik strains up. It’s almost like sparring and feels just as easy, just as good, lights the same burn in Flik’s limbs and, well, almost the same pressure in his groin. Something _strikes_ in him, that’s about the only way he can describe it, and he’d like very much to get a hand, any hand on himself because if he doesn’t come soon he might go insane.

His fingers tangle with Viktor’s once he tries. “Beat you to it,” Viktor says, all ragged broken breath just under Flik’s ear. “Don’t worry, I’ve got you.”

Every other time Viktor’s said that, he’s meant it. That doesn’t mean Flik doesn’t stop trying, but Viktor’s already there, and Flik catches the back of Viktor’s hand just before he comes.

Viktor finishes while Flik’s still riding it out, and if that part’s strange, searing and wet in places Flik never expected to feel either of those things, Flik doesn’t have it in him to feel wronged or offended or anything but wrung out in the best possible way.

Then Viktor heaves out a breath that could put a Wind Rune to shame, and collapses on top of him.

On top of the arrow wound. The now-somewhat sweat-soaked arrow wound.

If that doesn’t warrant Flik throwing Viktor off the bed, nothing does.

“What?” Viktor makes what’s probably an attempt at an innocent pout and scrambles back onto the bed. Flik’s not buying it.

“Do you always feel the need to smother the people you have sex with?”

“Just the ones I like.” Viktor shrugs, grins, peels up a corner of the sheets to clean himself off. He’s Viktor. Nothing’s different.

“That’s your side,” Flik says, or hopes he says. “Of the bed, I mean.”

“Figured as much,” Viktor agrees.

The mattress tilts. Flik thinks he hears Viktor ask, “Ready to sleep?” but Flik’s not sure he’s awake enough to respond.

***

Either the fireworks are still going, or Viktor’s snore has taken on new dimensions.

Flik rolls over and wakes up. It’s the latter. He elbows Viktor in the back. “Cut it out.”

Viktor snurfles magnificently. “Howzat?”

Flik is about to tell him it’s time to get going, when the combination of a blinding headache, a persistent soreness in his lower body, and a hazy recollection of stubbly kisses change his mind entirely. “Did we just have sex?”

“Yup,” Viktor says.

“Oh,” Flik says. “Okay.” He rests his hand over the arrow wound, which isn’t stinging or sharply painful. Nothing’s amiss, aside from the somewhat expected headache. “Please tell me I was on top.”

Viktor’s nasal breathing pauses momentarily. Even the mattress stops creaking. “Sure. Let’s go with that.”

“No, wait, I remember.” Flik lays back, tries to let his eyes focus on the ceiling. “Ow.”

The mattress lurches, and Viktor flings an arm out, rubs his fist through Flik’s hair. “I’ll buy you breakfast.”

It does nothing for Flik’s headache, but Flik doesn’t swat him away. “You mean Barbarossa’s vase will buy me breakfast.”

“The vase I stole.”

“Let’s go with that.”

Viktor laughs, far too deep and resounding for this time of morning, and this time he ruffles Flik’s shoulder, which is only marginally better than ruffling his hair. Flik finds himself reaching up, but doesn’t shove him off this time either, or if he does it’s not exactly full-hearted.

After a long moment in which Flik fails to gain adequate focus on the ceiling, Viktor hauls himself up and stretches. The sound of his bones cracking reminds Flik to do the same, and Flik stretches out on the bed as much as he’s able. His sword’s within reach. He settles his fingertips against her hilt.

“You all right there?” Viktor asks, looking down from beside the bed.

Flik finds he appreciates the concern, irrelevant as it turns out to be. So he sits up, finds his pants, and nods. “Go have the vase appraised. I’ll get dressed and settle our tab.”

“You got it, Sparky.” Viktor reaches down, messes with Flik’s knee for a bit and snatches up the vase, whistling as he leaves.

Flik wonders if Viktor always touched him this much. After washing up, pulling on his pants, and buckling on his sword, Flik still doesn’t have an answer to that. Nothing’s unfamiliar but the context.

But there’s nothing wrong with the context, either.

***


End file.
